Fittingly for the opening weekend of the Six Nations, what looked like a rolling maul was held up on the Plymouth line early in the second half as Cambridge United searched for an equaliser.

It was the mother of all goalmouth scrambles with bodies splayed in the manner of a playground ‘bundle’ as Argyle somehow prevented the ball crossing the whitewash with Scott Wharton and Luke Berry among those having efforts blocked after Piero Mingoia’s cross caused chaos in the six-yard box.

But it was an incident that summed up an outstanding defensive display from the Pilgrims to leave United wondering how they managed to come away empty-handed.

Shaun Derry had said in his pre-match press call the crucial difference separating United from the clubs in the play-off places when they met each other was being clinical with their finishing.

Although United failed to register a goal, you cannot legislate for the resolute rearguard action produced by the visitors when required.

There always seemed to be a Plymouth defender ready to dive in and block any opportunity at source, Sonny Bradley and Oscar Threlkeld throwing their bodies in the way of anything.

But even when the hosts were able to get closer to goal, they were thwarted at every turn.

Ben Williamson saw a goal-bound header deflected just off target off Jakub Sokolik and Liam O’Neil had an effort diverted on to the bar and over, while Wharton’s powerful header in first-half stoppage time was cleared off the line by Graham Carey.

And that was just in the first half.

Unfortunately for United, they were behind at the interval to Antoni Sarcevic’s header just before the break.

To be fair to Plymouth, it came at the end of spell of dominance after seemingly getting to grips with the 3-5-2 system deployed by Derry’s side.

They played some neat patterns with the classy Carey at the heart of their best work as well as having particular joy down the left with the tricky Matt Kennedy, who along with Sarcevic, forced decent saves from Will Norris.

Going back to United’s formation, which saw Blackburn loanee Wharton handed his debut in a three-man back line, Derry admitted it had only been called upon due to a lack of right-backs with Brad Halliday

suffering a recurrence of his knee problem, Leon Davies sidelined with a shoulder injury and Greg Taylor out with a damaged groin.

Jake Carroll and Piero Mingoia were roped into wing-back roles that neither looked entirely at home with, but Harrison Dunk came on for the former just before the hour and put in a great shift that unsettled Plymouth once more.

Derry said: “The shape change came upon us on Friday morning. We had about an hour to work on it.

“I think that in itself tells a story about how flexible not just the team, but the coaching staff are as well.”

Wharton showed exactly why he is so highly rated by Rovers, barely putting a foot wrong at the back with Mark Roberts guiding him and a willingness to stick his head in where it hurts at the other end, only to be denied twice on the line.

Replacing James Dunne, Paul Lewis also sent a powerful header goalwards only for Luke McCormick to pull off a fine save as United kept pushing for a leveller.

Elsewhere in midfield, O’Neil looks as if he will be a good acquisition based on this performance, especially with the range of passing he seems capable of producing to try to set things in motion.

One of his few errors led to Jordan Slew going through one-on-one with Norris.

But the former United forward demonstrated the kind of finishing that saw him grab just one goal in amber and black by somehow shovelling the ball into the side netting in injury time.

A frustrated Derry said: “I’m getting pretty annoyed that we’re not getting anything out of the top seven teams when we play as well as we do against them.

“We dominated them for large parts, they had a 15-minute spell in the game and that was it.

“From a defensive display from Plymouth’s angle, you say hats off to them, but I’m not sure what we could have done differently.”